by Selby Martin
Selby Martin was Head of Chancery and Consul, a position later renamed as Deputy Head of Mission, at British Embassy Sofia in the early 1970s.
Our main pastime was travelling round Bulgaria enjoying its magnificent scenery, the churches, monasteries and historic towns. I had taken fishing tackle with me and hoped to fish for trout in the many rivers and lakes. This had not worked out as I had wished. On one of our first outings we had seen the Isker river below Samokov; it looked ideal water, flowing slowly through a broad valley. I attended a meeting of the Union of Fishermen. I was told that foreigners were not allowed to join; I was not accorded a warm reception, indeed, it was distinctly frigid. Not long afterwards we went up a valley at the end of which there was a reservoir reputed to hold fish. We couldn’t go all the way to it as there was a police barrier for which one needed a pass. We heard from a fisherman we met there that the reservoir is kept for members of the government. I tried to get a pass without success. There was another high lake about an hour’s drive from Borovetz on a rough road. At the end I was told by a warden that fishing was prohibited as the lake had just been stocked. I left my tackle behind and after a steep climb I eventually reached the lake. It was very small, only 200 to 300 yards long and 100 yards wide, shallow and weedless. Sure enough, it was full of minute trout.
One of the most interesting sites in Bulgaria is the Rila Monastery. We booked a week-end there, partly to look at the monastery but also to try fishing in a lake about three hours walk away. As it was wet and misty, this was out of the question. I tried a small stream, the Rila river, without success, and only got very wet. Later the same day we walked up a side valley for a picnic and I again had a go with fly – still no success. Finally, on our way home I tried in a promising looking place on the Rila river where a sluice formed a large pool and many flies were hatching on it. An hour’s fishing there produced nothing. It was exceptionally cold for July – air temperature 54ºF while in London it was 82ºF.
On an earlier journey, we had stopped at the monastery of Bachkovo about 20 miles from Plovidiv where we had been attending the annual Trade Fair to meet British exhibitors. While we were there, a farmer and his wife came in with a live sheep. It was held in front of an icon with a candle burning over its head, while the priest said various prayers and repeated seven or eight names. He told us afterwards that the peasant had taken a vow to present a sheep to the church if various difficulties, such as the illness of his children, were resolved. This had apparently happened, as the farmer had brought in his offering which we saw being blessed: the prayers were for the family and the names were those of his children. It was an interesting and refreshing occurrence to witness in a communist country.
After leaving Sofia on return posting to London, we later returned as ordinary visitors on two or three occasions. The first was in 1980 on a camping trip through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. We found everything much as we had left it, except that the country seemed tidier, brighter and more prosperous. Richard Dales, then Head of Chancery, generously invited us to stay. The same staff were still working at the Ambassador’s Residence. In some ways, life at the embassy seemed easier and more relaxed, with fewer restrictions. In other ways, things were harder with food, especially vegetables, becoming more difficult to obtain. Slavka and Milka (cleaning ladies and babysitters for the families of British diplomats in Bulgaria in the 1960s and 1970s) were delighted to see us again and entertained us to extravagant meals. On a walk in Lenin Park, we were nostalgic about the different features where the children had played nine years before.
In 1998 we returned once again to Bulgaria on a week-long tour of the country organised by a travel agency. We had time in Sofia to revisit the area where we had lived when we were members of the Embassy. The block of flats looked down at heel. The park was woefully neglected; benches had been broken and not properly repaired, if at all; street lamps had been smashed; the ponds were empty, fountains not working. Graffiti had been scribbled on the Russian war memorial, a piece of vandalism I found highly offensive given Russia’s part in liberating Bulgaria from the Turks and then in defeating the Nazis, with whom Bulgaria was allied in WW2. Since that time, the monument has become a centre for anti-Russian protests, for example over the arrest of the Pussy Riot girls in Moscow, Russian intrusion into the Ukraine; there are many campaigning for it to be removed.
Such disruption as that caused by a radical change of regime is common all over the world. We believe that the situation has improved since that time and Bulgaria is now an important tourist destination, popular among those wishing to buy a property abroad. Despite the peculiarities and constraints of living in a communist state, we were there at the right time and had enjoyed our stay.